Stop the presses! Religious intolerance in (gasp) secular Turkey, heir of the illustrious Ottoman Empire! "Santa Claus statue row in Turkey," from the BBC, with thanks to Susan:
Residents of the Turkish province of Antalya have held a rally to denounce the removal of a statue of St Nicholas, commonly known as Santa Claus.Local authorities replaced the statue of the saint holding a Bible with a plastic Santa-Claus.
The statue was a donation from Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who has sent a complaint to the Turkish president....
Despite being a predominantly Muslim country, Turkey is proud of its St Nicholas connection.
Is that so? Then what explains this incident?
The Russian artist who sculpted the statue, Gregory Pototsky, reacted angrily to its removal."It is not decent to do such things with gifts. There is nothing about religious tolerance here," he told the Newsru.com web site.
Demre has become a major tourist attraction, with Russians comprising a large part of international holiday-makers in Antalya.
A whole neighborhood in Istanbul is full of Russian traders. Many Turkish men seem to be under the impression that all Russian women, "Natashas," are fair game; they are wrong. A trip to sites in Istanbul can be punctuated by the sound of perfectly respectable Russian girls, or others not quite so respectable but whose expression indicates, like those neon signs on top of those taxis that never stop, "Not on Duty" -- as they wave away the too-aggressive locals, screaming "Poshol von" to the too-aggressive locals.
And now that is what, for reasons that deserve to be pondered, Turksih authorities have done to a gift from the Moscow mayor, of the statue of St. Nicholas who, apparently, has an Antalya connection: Poshol von. Get lost, beat it, scrammez-vous.
Russian troops once might have occupied Constantinople. It was the Western powers -- Britain and France -- that protected the Ottomans in the Crimean War. Gladstone, indignant over Western pusillanimity and Turkish barbarity at the time of the Bulgarian Massacres (1874076) recalled that war, and how the Western powers had assumed that the Turks, being grateful for being rescued, would ease up on their Christian subjects. But of course they did nothing of the kind.
If you read Gladstone today, it will put you in mind of what American leaders will soon be thinking (but not saying as eloquently, if they dare say it at all) about the "Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations" project in Iraq. All that money, all those lives, all that material -- which did not make the world safe for democracy, but made Iraq safer for Islam, especially of the Shi'a variety.
Spot on, Hugh! In fact first things 'grateful' Turks did was to go out and massacre Christians -
which they'd signed a treaty NOT to do. It's crazy anyone could believe Turkey should join E.U.
THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO TOLERANCE TOWARDS OTHER FAITHS OR MINORITIES IN 'SECULAR' TURKEY.
The Russians there should take heed to a warning of this magnatude and should probably leave.
The pure disrespectful antics lay out a much bigger picture here as to the direction of Turkey.
The fools have offended their tourist customers, thereby depriving "secular" Turkey of much-needed income they can hardly afford to turn up their noses at.
I guess it is better to count on sponging money from Kaffir EU rather than changing the reason why you are so poor in the first place -- Islam.
OK, do not forget that this area was greek for more than 2,500 years and actually it is the crandle of christianity. Just to remind you history, it is actually St. Vassilios (Bill in English) and not Nikola. St. Nikola it is the protector of the seaman and it is found in the Aegean Islands and not in Asia Minor.
The story is that St. Vassilios was from Ceasaria (Kaisaria) and he helped the poor. That is why we tend to make presents during the Christmass time.
Turks till 1920 were only occupators sicne the majority were Greeks,Armenians and other locals. Turks are coming from deep asia and first appeared in 1200. After the early 1900 genocides (Armenian, Pontian Greeks, Natives, Kurds and etc.) they tried to destroy any evidence of what was really this place. Many churches turned in Mosques (this includes Christian churches in North Cyprus few years ago) and clearly it is an evidence that turkey does not differ from other Asian nations.
The thing is, unlike many people on this site, I do sincerely believe that a majority of Turks, especially but not exclusively the educated, professional, or military classes, do want to be a part of Europe, not only to sponge - even if that were possible, since the expansion of EU borders is going with an increasing tightening in agricultural subsidies - but because they see it as the land of modernity, success, prestige, competence, power. And there is a difference between Turkey and most Muslim countries: Turkey may be, indeed it is, poor as compared not only to the overwhelmingly rich states of the old EU, but also to the new Eastern members, but she is far richer than any Arab country, and more economically active. She also has, in general, a better standard of living than Russia. The point is that it really must choose. If it wants to live with prosperity and power, then it must live with liberty. And that means giving up, for good and for ever, the accumulated ways of thinking of a thousand years of tyranny and mob rule. It is a demand that we make of every member: Spain had to give up Fascism, Greece military rule. Now if Turkey understands what liberty is, then, no matter what shocks we may all still be in for in the foreseeable future, then she will fit in. If not, then, one way or another,` she will be spat out; and that is that. You people utterly misunderstand just how ingrained and fundamental are certain standards of behaviour in every country that is a part of political Europe; if we seem sometimes complacent about defending them, it is because so many of us never thought that any reasonable person could reject them. And that is true from Sweden to Italy and from Portugal to Estonia. Anyone who says otherwise simply has no idea what Europe is.